Study: Home Supports to Play Bigger Role

LOWELL, Ind. -- Denise Fields has been volunteering for Meals on Wheels for about a year now.
Fields, 49, lives in Lowell with her mother, Janice Fields. She goes with a driver once a month or so to help deliver the meals, bringing them to the door and sometimes chatting with the recipients.
“She loves it,” her mother said, adding Fields was ill recently and couldn’t help out, which broke her heart. “She enjoys being around elderly people.”
Fields has received services from The Arc Northwest Indiana since around 1980. Fields, who has Down syndrome, also works at The Arc’s sheltered workshop in Crown Point, putting pieces of wood together for craft kits, sorting shop rags or readying the cloths that come with eyeglasses.